Bamboo bats offer cricket a cheaper answer to the global willow shortage

Cricket’s willow problem is getting harder to ignore

Cricket is facing a supply problem that threatens to make the sport increasingly expensive: there may simply not be enough willow to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding global game.

There are now an estimated 200 million regular cricketers worldwide, while the UK produces about half a million willow clefts a year and Kashmir produces between 1.5 million and 3 million. Each cleft makes one bat, and the figures are becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile with demand.

Willow plantations in Kashmir have also been replaced in many areas by faster-growing poplar, which is more attractive to the wood-products industry. The price of willow has consequently risen sharply, from about £60 to £120 per cleft in recent years, pushing the cost of finished bats beyond the reach of more players.

A bamboo alternative takes shape

Darshil Shah, an associate professor of material science and design at the University of Cambridge, has been developing a possible alternative since 2019. After colleagues worked on laminated bamboo for building projects, Shah began testing leftover material for bat-making.

The first prototypes were too heavy and produced 30% more ball rebound than willow. Shah’s team reduced the weight by removing material, creating a shape closer to bats used in the 1990s. Improvements in processing also addressed an early durability problem in which the bamboo layers peeled apart.

Shah says the latest version performs fairly similarly to a willow bat, although he argues that cricket needs better testing standards. “At the moment, unlike, say, golf clubs, they are not tested at all,” he said.

Former professional cricketer Abidine Sakande tested one of the bats at a Cambridge sustainability conference. He described it as “quite planky” at first glance, but said it had “a noticeable sweet spot when it connects”, despite not yet being a finished product.

Cheaper does not automatically mean greener

Bamboo clefts cost between £3 and £20, far below the price of willow. Bamboo is also faster-growing and available in regions including South America, India, China, Indonesia and parts of Africa, where cricket is expanding.

However, a life-cycle assessment conducted by Shah’s team found that processing impacts were broadly similar for traditional willow, laminated willow and laminated bamboo bats. The biggest environmental factor was transport: emissions from importing and exporting raw materials were double or even triple the impact of processing the bat itself.

That points to a local-sourcing model, with English willow serving British and European markets, Kashmir willow used for Asian bats, and bamboo produced closer to emerging cricket communities.

Cricket’s laws remain the biggest obstacle

The Marylebone Cricket Club has acknowledged the pressure on willow supplies. Following an emergency conference on cricket bats, it changed the laws to allow recreational bats to be made from up to three pieces of wood, enabling manufacturers to use more of a tree.

Bamboo bats remain prohibited because they are multiply laminated and made from grass rather than wood. Shah is nevertheless hopeful that the rules may become more flexible for entry-level cricket, particularly as the sport seeks to widen access.

The likely market is not professional cricket but schools, clubs and recreational players. Shah noted that children already often use plastic bats and argued that cricket’s traditional connection with willow should not prevent the sport from experimenting.

“Cost is such a big issue,” Shah said. “At the moment cricket is pricing people out of the game.”